The Girls

Yes, the girls. What can we say except that they are a pair of cheeky, funny, sweet but oh so naughty monkeys. They have evolved so quickly and by leaps and bounds over the past 3-4 months! Most notably Seraphine. She’s now able to communicate with some limited vocabulary. The person who most understands her is….. Bibou of course! She does most of the translation for us. They are so good to each other! I love to watch them play together, it’s soooo cute. Bibou speaks really encouragingly to her, and I was actually quite tickled to hear this the other day : “come on sweetheart, you can do it, just push the ball this way…. YES bravo sweetheart”. However, sweet as they are, these tender moments don’t last long. Ohhhh they fight like cats and dogs!!!!!!!! Do they fight ever! Seraphine has come to an age where everything is ‘hers’, and often tries to snatch everything from her big sister, who, understandably tries to defend her stuff and herself. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do it well, she just either snatches back or screams at her; both of which results in Seraphine pinching or biting her and then the back and forth goes on. Sigh. There is much intervention and corner time at our house lately. Doesn’t help also that Bibou is such a cuddly person and wants to cuddle and hug her sister (all of us of course) all the time and Seraphine is soooooooooo not that person. She hates to be cuddled and has no qualms of pushing her big sister away, which then hurts her feelings. She also doesn’t like Bibou’s whiney and tattle-tale-ing ways and often swipes at her when she does. (can’t blame her there). So, yes, it’s like fight club at our place sometimes. But there is no doubt they are stuck together like glue, and cannot live without each other. Seraphine always always seeks out Bibou; when she wakes up for example and always thinks about her whenever she receives anything – be it her snack, lunch or treat. It’s always ‘and Bibou?’. One phrase that is often heard in our house over and over again, “BIBOUUUUUUUU….attend me, ok? Attend me….”, as she scrambles to catch up with her. She’ll like whatever Bibou likes, and repeats whatever Bibou does. The picture here with the both of them in the snow was taken one morning when there were huge snowflakes falling. Bibou stuck her tongue out to ‘catch’ the snow, and Seraphine of course wanted to do just like Bibou…. She’s really cute and perceptive… and she gives the best hugs and kisses (when she feels like she wants to doll them out of course!). And she LOVES LOVES smaller children and babies. They both do, but especially Serpahine. We have a neighbor who has a little girl about 1 ½ years old, (but quite tiny) and both of them would be all over her, wanting to hug and hold her, have her on their laps. Really sweet.

Bibou’s development and also English (understanding and spea

king) has also improved quite a lot. She loves her English class and is doing very well there! Here’s her report card which really reflects that. She’s enjoying it so much. She gets

so very excited about her 2 school days. We’re also potty training her at night now. The problem is that she is such a deep sleeper than she just can’t wake up. We’ve resorted to not letting her drink too much in the evening and Daddy has to carry her down to the bathroom just before we go to bed! So far so good. Well, she needs to be ready as our baby is going to be

leaving us for about 10 days in May! She’s going away to camp!!! I’m not quite ready, but she’s so ready! It’ll be a good experience for her. And she’s really excited about it.

The Videos

This is a hilarious vid of Seraphine 'telling Bibou off' - we've recently been telling Seraphine (whenever she's up to no good) that what she did was 'naughty, naughty' (with fingers wagging too), and recently she's taken to copying that and telling people that they've been naughty, especially if they're not doing what she wants!.

For some reason, this is one of my favorite videos of Seraphine; - like she's all grown up and not the baby anymore :( .

Another cute talking video

Daddy snapped this video of Seraphine - she'd JUST woken up after her nap and instead of her usual calling out for someone to come get her (only so that she can 'hide' - under the blankets and 'surprise' you when you come up to an 'empty' bed), she decided to come down the stairs, wearing a hat and grabbing whatever that is in her hands that was probably in her bed. Seraphine is a big 'treasure' hogger'! She loves bringing things into bed with her and sometimes I would find her in bed squeezed in one corner because the rest of the bed is filled with stuff! (books, crayons, dolls, playset, etc).

Here's a video of the girls dancing away. You will notice how Seraphine just copies whatever Bibou does.

This is a video of a 'guilty' Seraphine who's being told off for splashing water! She knows she's in the wrong.....

Finally, a very unusual pose for the girls. Seraphine doesn't like to cuddle, but this particular morning, Daddy found them cuddling, watching their show. Like I said, very unusual.... I think Seraphine wasn't feeling well too. Anyway, needless to say, the cuddle didn't last very long!